online marketing - seo and google analytics

ONLINE MARKETING

F O R E S T RY I N N O VAT I O N I N V E S T M E N T

ONLINE MARKETING

for the wood industry

CHRIS BREIKSS

President & Co-Founder 6S Marketing Chris focuses his time on business development and R&D. He is a frequent public speaker, representing agency perspectives at conferences nationally and internationally. @chrisbreikss @6s_marketing

ABOUT 6S

For 13 years, 6S has been serving up the best in digital marketing. We’re a skilled, dedicated and industry-savvy team of 30 employees. Our project managers have 4 to 10+ years of SEM experience.

SEARCH

PART I

Today, SEO is still the number one driver of web traffic Who uses the yellow pages or white pages to find a company? Nobody. They Google you.

The Search Marketing Landscape “Ranking #1 in the Top 10 search engines” is a thing of the past. Now search is customized to each user and in NA, everybody uses Google… (ok 85%+)

On Page Factors Content · Site Architecture + Structure · Technical Elements

Not all web design elements are good for SEO Flash · Java · Frames · Graphic Navigation Systems · Custom CMS

Make it as easy as possible for Google to understand your content Do you have a robots.txt file? Verified Webmaster tools account (look for errors on opportunities) Sitemap.xml (dynamically updated?)

How do search engines rank pages? Algorithms: a series of mathematical equations that make calculations about the relevance of words on web pages

Google PageRank A system that rates the importance of pages in direct proportion to the number of external links pointing to that page

EXERCISE

your top three search phrases

Integration Link your AdWords, Analytics, and Webmaster Tools accounts with the same Google account. Then YouTube, Places etc.

Off Page Factors Linking · Social Media · Google+

Links to your site in Webmaster tools

Blogs are Great for SEO Fresh, keyword-rich content makes Google happy

External Linking Primary method for off-site SEO · Inbound linking and anchor text

Strategize Social Media Presence for SEO How do your social media profiles link together? Is your site using social media share buttons?

Google+ is the top social media tool that influences SEO Need more distribution for your blog content?

The +1 button and impact on search

SEO BEST PRACTICES

FOR WEB DESIGN

OVERVIEW

Site Organization and Structure – the building blocks Flash – the good, the bad and the ugly Usability and Conversion Optimization – how to get a site to not only get traffic but make $$ Images vs. Content – how to make sure everyone gets along All Things Technical – site speed, CSS, code structure

SITE ORGANIZATION

Keywords Basis of site structure needs to be built around keywords This includes domain name, navigation items, folder names, file names, image names, etc. Work with the site’s SEO to create the best structure that meets usability requirements and keyword-specific landing pages

SITE ORGANIZATION

URLs Consistency is key – choose one format and stick with it Use absolute links throughout the site Include keywords in the URLs strategically Think about the whole URL for each landing page, not just the domain name

SITE ORGANIZATION

URLs Always put URLs in lowercase with words separated by hyphens Try to keep the number of words per folder/file to 3 or less Avoid dynamic URLs whenever possible Don’t include extraneous folders where not necessary

SITE ORGANIZATION

Example of good URL structuring

Fits keywords in, short, uses hyphens, lowercase, keywords don’t appear more than 2 times

SITE ORGANIZATION

Landing Pages What types of landing pages are there? How do they affect SEO? Landing pages should be created to match organic keywords referring traffic to the site Create prominent messaging and/or CTAs on individual URLs that match the keyword or landing page topic Should it be a part of the site’s navigation or separate?

FLASH

The Good User experience Can include SWF objects to help search engines see some of the Flash content How does this fit in with SEO?

FLASH

The Bad Can’t view Flash elements on most mobile devices Users need to keep Flash up-to-date for it to work properly The Ugly Search engines can’t see information in Flash Slow load time Need strong supporting arguments to include any type of Flash on a site

FLASH ALTERNATIVES

HTML5 Other scripting options Video Social media feeds

USABILITY

Goal of SEO is to gain ranking to increase qualified traffic to the site and gain conversions / leads Bounce rates affect SEO Don’t assume that visitors will enter the site from the homepage Conduct usability testing where possible

CONVERSIONS

Define what the conversion points will be on the site Set up measureable goals for these conversions on the site if possible Ensure that the CTAs for these conversions are prominent on every page of the site

IMAGES VS. CONTENT

Where not to use images • Navigation • Headers Structure • Alt tags / image file naming / etc

ALL THINGS TECHNICAL

Clean Code Always use the most up-to-date web standards Keep all formatting, scripting, etc code out of the page Use W3C tools and information regularly


Order Matters Keep text content to the top Keep title and meta tags to the top Move scripts to the bottom Use CSS to bridge the gap


Site Speed Every page should load as fast as possible Use the Google Page Speed tool http://pagespeed.googlelabs.com/ What items help improve site speed?

http://pagespeed.googlelabs.com/



EXAMPLES

FROM THE

WOOD INDUSTRY

Together, search and social increase the value that each channel delivers. Consumers exposed to a brand’s social media content are 2.8 times more likely to search on that brand’s terms.

(Source: ComScore)

AMPLIFICATION Twitter: Promoted Tweets · Facebook: Sponsored Stories · YouTube

Promoted Tweets (ads)

Social channels integration with your website On Contact Us page, blog at a minimum. Integrate Google+ into your corporate website.

EXERCISE

what social share buttons are on your site?

where are they?

PART II

MEASUREMENT

WHAT IS GOOGLE ANALYTICS?

A tool used to track the effectiveness of your website You can see how visitors are engaging with the content on your site Who the visitors are: return vs new, mobile vs pc, language, location How effective certain campaigns are Monitor the profitability of the website as a whole

Assisted Conversions

KEY METRICS

Visits Unique visitors Page views Pages/visit Avg. visit duration Bounce rate

KEY METRICS

Each organization has unique goals: engagement, leads, sales Defining a way to measure your goals will make your data more relevant and actionable Helps you assess campaign effectiveness and ROI So now that you know a bit about the metrics, what kinds of data do you see and how can you actually use it?

ANALYTICS 101

Install tracking code and view reports within 24 hours Identify goals and set them up in GA to measure effectiveness Link to AdWords and AdSense Tag campaigns – track conversions on banner ads, email marketing, etc. Create custom segments to analyze specific parts of your traffic

SEO 101

Create unique, accurate page titles Make use of the “description” meta tag Improve the structure of your URLS, and make your site easier to navigate Offer quality content Optimize your use of images Use heading tags appropriately

THANK YOU

Chris Breikss [email protected] @chrisbreikss @6s_marketing